SureSync Part 3: Setting Up Your First SureSync Relation (Mirroring)

Expert Rob Hawthorne wraps up the three-part series on SureSync with this discussion of setting up a Relation within SureSync. The whole installation, configuration, and setup of the SureSync product is now complete.

From the author of

From the author of

Okay, so far in this three-part series on SureSync, you have explored the
reasons behind using SureSync (Part 1), and installed SureSync as a service
(Part 2). In this third and final article, you will set up your first
Relation.

What you need:

At least two directories on your server: a Source and a Destination
directory; that is, C:\SureSync\Source and C:\SureSync\Destination (although the
Source or the Destination can reside on another server or PC).

Some files (that is, Word, Excel, and/or PDF documents). About five or
six documents will be fine.

The installation and configuration of SureSync as a service. (See my
article, "SureSync Part 2: Installing and Configuring SureSync to Run As
a Service," for instructions.)

You will configure your first Relation as a rule known as a Mirror Rule,
which ensures that all directories involved in the Relation have exactly
the same contents in each directory. This will allow you to see right away
the power of the mirroring functionality. The Mirror Rule is one of the more
powerful Rules provided with SureSync, and allows you to keep multiple
repositories synchronized. In this example, you will keep at least two
directories synchronized.

Setting Up Your First Relation

When you are ready, open SureSync. When you are in the main SureSync
window, go to File, New, Relation. This launches a new window (similar to that
shown in Figure 1). Alternatively, you can right-click on the Relations folder
within SureSync, and select New Relation. You see the SureSync Relation
Wizard.

I think of SureSync as a hierarchical application. First of all, you need a
Relation (this specifies how one folder relates to another folder(s)), followed
by a Rule (specifies what action is going to occur between the folders in the
Relation), and finally followed by a Schedule (a time when the action of the
Rule will initiated).

In the next step of the Relation Wizard, you need to specify the folders that
are involved in your Relation, as shown in Figure 2.

Select the Source and Destination folders that you set up earlier to be
involved in the Relation (don't worry which one you select first). By
clicking on the Add button, you can navigate your way to the folders involved in
the Relation (a new window will pop up). You may notice the additional tabs
available in the new window that launches. Under the Path Options tab, you can
specify a number of behaviors (such as the account that SureSync connects as)
when SureSync attempts to copy or delete files on another server. The File
System tab reports the type of file system that you are connecting to (for
example, NTFS, FAT, and so on).

The next couple of screens in the wizard are important for advanced
configurations of Relations, but they are not required for your basic setup.
These steps in the wizard allow you to modify the behavior of the
Relationfor example, specifying the number of times a file is attempted to
be copied and the length of time (in seconds) between retries.

Accept the SureSync default for each step in the wizard, until you reach the
SureSync Rule Wizard screen, as shown in Figure 3.

If the licensing window pops up while you are trying to move to the screen
shown in Figure 3, just click on OK at the prompt and then click on Close. (You
may notice that the mouse icon remains as an hourglass; don't
worryjust click on Close, and it will go back to a pointer).

Figure 3 Specifying the Mirror Rule that you will use in your new
Relation.

The Rule for the Relation that you will set up, as mentioned earlier, is a
Mirror Rule.

NOTE

For a list of the different types of Rules and the functions they perform,
refer to the first article in this series: "SureSync Part 1: Replicating
Data with SureSync."

When you have selected the Mirror option for the Rule, click on Next. You now
have the option to select which folder involved in the Relation is the Source,
and which folder(s) are the Destinations. Select the Source folder by clicking
the box next to the folder path. In the box underneath, select the path or paths
that are the Destination directories, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Setting up the Source and Destination directory(ies) for the
Rule.

The following few steps in the Rule Wizard, although important for ensuring
the correct functioning of your SureSync Relations in the future, aren't
necessary for you to configure for the initial testing Relation of SureSync.
One of these steps allows you to specify the types of files (.doc, .pdf, .mdb,
and so on) that you want to include/exclude in your Rule. This allows you to
have a Relation that includes (or excludes) files of certain types, which is
extremely useful for those publishing processes.

You also have the ability to include files and/or folders that have been
modified within a specified date range or if the modification date has changed
in the last x number of days. These options offer a lot of flexibility
when it comes to designing solutions that only require transferring files that
have been modified recently.

However, because you just want to get a basic Relation up and running for
proving the installation and configuration of SureSync, just accept the
wizard's defaults that are provided for each step. (Don't worry; the
documentation provided with SureSync covers each section in more depth.) After
you reach the step shown in Figure 5, specify the configuration options shown in
the figure for your Relation.

Figure 5 Specifying the attributes and the conditions associated with the
Rule.

This step in the wizard allows you to specify the attributes that you want
turned off or on, as well as the files or the folders to be included or excluded
based on certain attributes. You will specify that the read-only attribute be
applied to every file that is copied, and that you will not copy files that are
hidden or system-only files.

As you can imagine, this gives a lot of power when it comes to configuring
the Rules for your Relations. By simply specifying that you only apply the Rule
if the item is not a folder, you can ensure that SureSync will only copy files
instead of folders and files. You can also ensure that when a file is copied,
the read-only attribute is turned on (as you have specified), thus providing you
with some simple assurance that users cannot change the file accidentally.

The next step in the wizard is not relevant to your Relation, so accept the
defaults and move on until you reach the screen shown in Figure 6. (The step you
are skipping allows you to limit files based on size, whether they already
exist, as well as ensure that the folder for the file exists before trying to
copy the file.)

Figure 6 Specifying the permissions attributes that you want copied for
your files and folders within the Rule.

In the Permissions screen, you are specifying that you want all of the
permissions currently associated with your files and folders to be preserved
when they reach your Destination directory. Please note that this will work only
on an NTFS partition (both Source and Destination directories), and permissions
can be preserved only if both the Source and Destination directories know about
the groups and/or users that have permissions to the folders and files.

TIP

You need to check the option "Preserve all security objects on replaced
files" before you select any of the other attributes that you want to
preserve. This forces SureSync to replicate the permissions associated with a
file, even if it already exists in the Destination directory.

You need to be aware that the copying of permissions on files and folders,
although a very cool feature (and very useful for those publishing processes),
causes a large overhead. Software Pursuits have stated that they use standard
Windows API calls for replicating permissions, and on a LAN (10Mbps or greater)
you shouldn't notice any deterioration in performance. On a WAN that has
slow links, however, you should be a little careful because this has caused some
performance issues.

Because the Mirroring Rule blanket copies files if they are different from
the Source to the Destination directories, the setup you have now will copy the
permissions on files. However, for the files that already exist in the
Destination directories and are the same as the Source directory, their
permissions will not be copied. (You can force this by selecting the "Copy
file security objects even if the file is not copied" option.) This is not
necessary for you, though, and will slow performance that little bit more.

After you have set the Permissions screen, as shown in Figure 6, click on
Next to move to the final step in setting up the Rule for the Relation. This
screen is once again not necessary for you to change for your setup, but it
allows you to configure options such as disconnecting a user from an open file
so it can be copied, or allowing a file to be copied while the Source file is
open. When you are ready, click on Finish. Sure Sync will then prompt you to
preview the Relation (and the Rule) before you run it, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 SureSync wants you to preview the Relation and Rule
configuration that you just set up.

You will get used to this prompt very quickly because every time you change a
Rule or a Relation, SureSync encourages you to see (preview) the way the
alteration will affect your setup.

Click on Yes, and you will see a screen similar to that shown in Figure 8.

In this screen shot, notice that I have a number of files listed (in the
bottom two panes) that you may not have. I confessI cheated a little, and
already copied some files (about seven assorted types) into the Source
directory, so that when I ran the preview of the Relation, the files would show
up. If you don't have any files showing up in your preview, go ahead and
copy some files into the Source directory. After you have done this, close down
the preview Relation window, but don't click on Synchronize Now, which will
return you to the main Sure Sync window. You can then click on the new Relation
you have created (I called mine "Testing Sure Sync"), and right-click
and select Preview Relation. If all your directories are pointing in the right
place, you will see the files appear in the bottom panes.

SureSync provides a legend that specifies what each of the icons mean next
to the file paths. The icons easily show which files/folders will be added (all
of them, as long as there are none in the Destination directory), and which
files/folders will be deleted. You can open the Legend window by selecting View,
Legend when previewing a Relation.